As the cost of vehicles has steadily increased throughout the years, vehicle owners have spent a great deal of time and money in maintaining the aesthetic beauty of the exterior portions of their vehicles. One problem such vehicle owners have, however, is the inability to protect the sides of the vehicle from dents and scratches caused by accidental contact, especially while the vehicle is parked in a packing lot. An example of such contact occurs when another vehicle owner opens his or her car door against the side of an owner's vehicle thereby causing a dent and/or a scratch to the vehicle's exterior. Although some vehicles are manufactured with a permanently affixed body side molding to the side of the vehicle, that molding often is not in the proper location to prevent accidental contact from another vehicle door or other object.
In light of this difficulty, it would be preferential to be able to locate and relocate the position of the body side molding situationally. This is true whether or not one owns a vehicle made of metal or, further, a non-ferrous vehicle made of, perhaps, fiberglass.
In the past, people have devised detachable body side moldings for ferrous vehicles. However, numerous problems still arise which are not dealt with regarding these devices. For example, such devices for ferrous vehicles are wholly inadequate for non-ferrous fiberglass body vehicles as vinyl magnets do not adhere to a non-metallic surface. Additionally, after an accident, the damaged portion of the ferrous vehicle is repaired with non-metallic material such that the vehicle loses its ferrous characteristic. Further, while one prior art reference, U.S. Pat. No. 4,498,697, proposes a non-integrated locking magnetic body molding, it may be easily stolen by simply bending the wire locking device. For all the other prior art, no locking devices are provided to prevent theft of the body molding.
All the above problems are overcome by the present invention in that the present invention incorporates a body side molding which can be releasably attached to ferrous and non-ferrous vehicles. Further, an inventive integrated recessed locking device is incorporated within the body side molding thus preventing theft of the body molding unit.